


Moonlight and Copper

by Isis



Category: Frontier Wolf - Rosemary Sutcliff
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Comes Back Wrong, M/M, Sibling Incest, Supernatural Elements, Zombies, mention of Cunorix/Shula, very vaguely implied Cunorix/Alexios
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-17
Updated: 2015-10-17
Packaged: 2018-04-26 17:13:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5013142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Isis/pseuds/Isis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cunorix wakes to the sound of someone slipping into his room.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Moonlight and Copper

**Author's Note:**

  * For [amyfortuna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/amyfortuna/gifts).



> Er, I kind of combined trick and treat prompts. Sorry?
> 
> Thanks to Riventhorn for beta reading this.

Cunorix wakes to the sound of someone slipping into his room. When Ferradach Dhu his father had been chieftain, Cunorix had slept in the hall among the warriors and serving-people, and he had cultivated the ability to ignore the noises of so many people while he slept. But the chieftain of the Votadini must be alert to any disturbance of his rath; and anyway, Cunorix has not been sleeping well lately.

He sits up in bed. "Who comes?" he calls in a low, quiet voice. 

Moonlight stripes the room, but the approaching figure is cloaked in darkness. "Shula?" he whispers. But it cannot be; their son is yet too young. She must stay in the women's house with him until he is able to be parted from her for a time. 

The figure advances into one of the bright swathes, and copper-coloured hair blazes briefly. "Oh, Connla," says Cunorix, relieved. He pushes the covers aside, to make room.

And then he remembers. It cannot be Connla. 

"Who comes?" he says again. His voice is louder, but it trembles slightly. He reaches for the knife that he always keeps by his bed. 

Slowly, steadily, the figure comes closer. It _is_ Connla. Or rather, it is something with Connla's shape, with his face, with his bright hair. But it cannot be Connla. 

Only two days before, Connla had been taken by the Romans to Castellum and tried for the theft of the Praepositus Montanus's horse. Bri, who had aided Connla in his theft, had twisted out of the soldiers' hands and raced back to the rath. On his gasping, broken words Cunorix and his warriors had ridden hard to Castellum. They had been too late for Connla, but not too late to join with the Caledoni and Attacotti massing at the gates of the Roman fort. 

The Praepositus had ordered Connla bound to a post as a target for javelin practice. The Commander of Castellum – Alexios, whom he had loved almost as a brother – had saved him from this fate the only way he could. Or so said the man of the Arcani who claimed to have witnessed it all: a dagger brought up surreptitiously, two inches in the right place, and the thing was done.

When they broke through to the parade-ground, Cunorix had immediately gone to the blood-stained post that stood at one end, surrounded by hay bales and broken spear-hafts. A few strands of red hair remained, twisted around the ropes that sat loosely on the cross-tree of the post, but Connla's body was not there. _They do not even leave me his body_ , Cunorix had thought bitterly. The Romans had taken even that from him.

But now he is not so sure, for walking toward him is a man who looks very much like Connla. 

"Is it you, brother?" he calls out.

"Who else would it be?" 

It is Connla's voice, light and careless. Connla's pale skin, Connla's fiery hair.

Cunorix lets out a long breath. It was all a mistake; it was all a lie. The Arcani man had said those things to enrage the Votadini, to make their blood so hot for revenge that they would add their force to those of their sometime enemies as they stormed the Roman fort. How could the man have seen what he had claimed? How could he have been there, at the parade ground? He was like Morvidd the oak priest, who whispered angry things into Cunorix's ear from beneath the dark shadow of his hood. Morvidd was furious that Cunorix had led his men back to their homes after the Romans had fled. Morvidd had said they should follow them, harry them. Kill them all for having the arrogance to come to their land, the Votadini land; kill them in revenge for Connla's death. But Morvidd is wrong. Connla is not dead; he is here, in Cunorix's sleeping-place. 

"We have driven out the Romans," he says, moving over so that Connla will have room to join him. "They have abandoned Castellum to the tribes, left this land." 

Connla has moved past the shaft of moonlight, now, and is only a shape in the darkness. Cunorix watches as he pulls his tunic off and throws it aside.

"My heart is filled with joy that you have come back."

"I could not stay away, my brother."

"I am very glad to know that the stories we had heard were untrue," says Cunorix, as Connla slips into the bed and then raises himself on his arms above him. "We had been told you were dead."

A drop of liquid falls onto Cunorix's naked breast.

"Oh, but I am," says Connla softly. Bright-copper hair falls about his face as he leans forward.

The lips that touch Cunorix's are as cool as stone. The curtain of Connla's red hair brushing his cheek looks oddly blood-coloured, though surely there is not enough moonlight here, in the dark bed, to see anything but shapes and shadows. But Cunorix has no time to wonder at these things. The dagger that pierces his chest hurts only for a moment. 

Connla sighs, and crumbles into dust. 

There is dust on Cunorix's face, and he wipes it off with a hand. He touches the spot on his chest where the last drop of Connla's blood fell, where it mingles with the warm blood trickling from his own body. 

Then Cunorix – the thing that was Cunorix – leaps to his feet and dresses rapidly. There is no time to waste if they are to catch up with the Romans. He will kill Alexios himself, with his own blade. He strides into the hall, shouting to wake his warriors. In the shadows, Morvidd the oak priest smiles to himself.

A shaft of moonlight touches Cunorix's bed. On it is a dagger, and a dark smear of blood, and a few strands of copper-coloured hair. 


End file.
